CNN’s Jake Tapper Calls Out Fox’s Peter Doocy: His Facebook Question to Psaki Was ‘Premised on a Lie’

 

CNN’s Jake Tapper called out Fox News’ Peter Doocy on Friday and said his question to White House press secretary Jen Psaki was “premised on a lie.”

Doocy questioned Psaki about comments from the White House about combating Covid-19 misinformation on Facebook, asking, “For how long has the administration been spying on people’s Facebook profiles looking for vaccine misinformation?”

“That was quite a loaded and inaccurate question,” Psaki responded, and the two clashed over the matter. Doocy asked about the dozen individuals brought up by the administration and if they “know that somebody at the surgeon general’s office is going through their profile.”

“There’s no secret list,” Psaki responded. “I will tell you that these are people who are sharing information on public platforms on Facebook.”

On CNN later in the day, Tapper brought up previous reporting on researchers identifying a “disinformation dozen” of individuals pushing false and misleading claims about the covid-19 vaccines on Facebook, which is what Psaki cited in comments during Thursday’s briefing.

During the panel segment Tapper questioned if there’s a “problem here with the White House telling private companies what content to allow and what content not to allow.”

He also addressed the exchange between Doocy and Psaki specifically:

At the same briefing, somebody from Fox, which also has a lot of people on who say things about the vaccine that are not true, asked a question premised on a lie, which was that the White House was going through people’s Facebook pages and private information to come up with this list. It’s not true. But, once again, we see another example of just lies making their way into the airwaves. But, again, that Fox correspondent has every right to lie or be mistaken about this.

President Joe Biden was asked about covid misinformation after Friday’s briefing, and he said that platforms like Facebook are “killing people.”

You can watch above, via CNN.

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Josh Feldman is a Senior Editor at Mediaite. Email him here: josh@mediaite.com Follow him on Twitter: @feldmaniac